C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis, creator of Narnia, was born in Belfast, once taught Tolkien's pals over pints, and died the same day JFK was shot. His life was stranger than his wardrobe.
Published
Quick Facts
- Full name
- Clive Staples Lewis, known to friends as "Jack"
- Born
- 29 November 1898, Belfast
- Died
- 22 November 1963, Headington, Oxford
- Best known for
- The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters
- Academic posts
- Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954); Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge (1954–1963)
- Literary circle
- The Inklings, an Oxford group that included J. R. R. Tolkien
- Wartime service
- Wounded on the Western Front in 1918 while serving with the Somerset Light Infantry
- Narnia books
- Seven, published between 1950 and 1956
The Belfast boy who wrote himself a country
Long before Narnia, there was Boxen. As a child in Belfast, Lewis filled notebooks with stories about a world of talking animals, drawn and written with his older brother Warnie. It was a kingdom with maps, politics and its own history. The family home, Little Lea, in east Belfast, had long corridors, empty attics and rainy afternoons, all the ingredients for a very busy imagination. Lewis later said the house shaped his sense of wonder. He was nine when his mother, Flora, died of cancer. He was sent to school in England soon afterwards, and he hated much of it. Yet he never quite stopped being an Irishman abroad.
From the trenches to the dreaming spires
Lewis arrived at Oxford in 1917 and was soon in uniform. In April 1918 he was wounded at Arras, hit by fragments from a British shell that fell short. His close friend Paddy Moore was killed in the war. Lewis had promised Paddy that he would look after Paddy's mother, Janie Moore, if the worst happened. He kept that promise for decades. They shared a home near Oxford, the Kilns, which became his base for most of his life. He returned to Oxford and took first-class degrees in classics, philosophy and English. In 1925 he became a fellow of Magdalen College, where he taught for nearly thirty years.
Pints, pipes and the Inklings
Lewis's best-known friendship began at Oxford in 1926, when he met a fellow academic named J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien was a Catholic and a philologist who loved myths, and he played a major part in Lewis's return to Christianity. The two became the centre of the Inklings, a group of writers who met to read unfinished work aloud. Gatherings were held in Lewis's college rooms, and famously at the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, which the group nicknamed the Bird and Baby. It was in that atmosphere that early chapters of The Lord of the Rings were tried out on listeners. Lewis was an enthusiastic audience, and Tolkien later credited his encouragement for helping him finish the book.
The wardrobe that opened in 1950
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe appeared in 1950. Lewis had been carrying around the image of a faun with an umbrella in a snowy wood since he was a teenager. During the Second World War, children evacuated from London stayed at the Kilns, which gave him an audience close to hand. Six more Narnia books followed, ending with The Last Battle in 1956. They were illustrated by Pauline Baynes, whose drawings Lewis admired, and Tolkien had recommended her to him. The books have sold in the region of a hundred million copies and been translated into dozens of languages. Lewis's Belfast, meanwhile, honours him with Ross Wilson's sculpture The Searcher, which shows Digory Kirke opening a wardrobe near Holywood Arches, and with a Narnia-themed trail.
The voice on the wireless
During the Second World War, the BBC invited Lewis to give radio talks on Christianity. They drew a large audience and later became Mere Christianity. In 1942 he published The Screwtape Letters, a comic book of advice from a senior demon to his nephew. He also wrote science fiction, including Out of the Silent Planet, and a scholarly work, The Allegory of Love, which is still read by students of medieval literature. In 1954 Cambridge created a chair for him. He accepted it, although Oxford, which had not given him a professorship, was his spiritual home.
Late love and a quiet end
In his fifties Lewis met Joy Davidman, an American writer. They married in a civil ceremony in 1956, initially so she could remain in Britain, and later in a Christian service when she was seriously ill. She died in 1960. His book A Grief Observed, written after her death, records his bewilderment and sorrow with unusual honesty. It was first published under a pseudonym. Lewis died at the Kilns on 22 November 1963, the same day President Kennedy was assassinated and the day Aldous Huxley died, so his death went largely unnoticed. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity in Headington Quarry, Oxford.
Notable people
- J. R. R. Tolkien
- Joy Davidman
- Warren Lewis
- Janie Moore
- Pauline Baynes
- Owen Barfield
- Charles Williams
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